Torture vs. Interrogation

As reported here, after tens years of not being allowed to investigate allegations of torture in China, Manfred Nowak, UN Torture Investigator was allowed to meet with 30 detainees held in China, Tibet and the Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang. He also met with families of those held, and will be issuing a report on his findings in 2006. Many of those he interviewed asked him not to reveal their names for fear of reprisals against their families by the Chinese government. China instituted a ban on torture that leaves permanent scars in 1996, and Mr. Nowak says that incidents of torture are declining, but haven't stopped yet.

Now what China still does to it's own people, and what has been alleged that US has done to terrorist detainees in Iraq and Gitmo are two totally different things. China persists in acts of actual torture, perpetrating physical abuse resulting in actual harm to those who have been detained, and has been doing so for centuries. What has been done to the terrorist detainees that even remotely resembles what the Chinese do? Nothing. Yet, our forces are vilified by the loony Left - most notably Sen. Kennedy, who in my opinion is guilty of manslaughter, but has never been brought up on charges (remember Mary Jo?) - for engaging in proper interrogation techniques, which have nevertheless been characterized as torture.

Were there abuses at Abu Ghraib? Yes. Were those responsible held accountable? Most of them. Was what they did out and out torture? No. Humiliating, yes. But torture? Absolutely not. While China has engaged in outright torture of it's own people, you hear little to nothing about it, and yet the MSM and the loony Left goes absolutely ape over what happened at Abu Ghraib, citing the protections of the Geneva Convention - which in the case of the detainees in Iraq and Gitmo do not apply, which they don't seem to understand!

Where is the moral outrage over the outright, verifiable, torture being conducted in China from the MSM and the loony Left? Nowhere to be found. Want to know why? Because President George W. Bush isn't Chinese.